THEATRE LIKE A TELESCOPE

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 85, 30 September 1911, Page 2 (Supplement)

THEATRE LIKE A TELESCOPE

ARENA MOVES UP AND DOWN. A wonderful theatre, opera house and circus arena combined is springing into existence in Dresden under the. auspices of the Saxon Ministers of Education and Finance. In this marvellous building Caruso will be able to sing before 5000 people, Mark Antony will ]>e able to address an audience of 4000 over the heads of 1000 Homnn citizens, and, owing to the vast seating accommodation, Wagner on a most magnificent scale may be heard for Is fid a head

The architect responsible for the building which is to make all this povssible is Hen- Stosch Sorrasani, a gentleman who has had vast experience in the building of eolosseum and areans. For the new building the Roman amphitheatre also forma the ground scheme; but at one side of tho vast arena, with its tiers of seats, situated eccentrically like a smaller circle just within the circumference of a larger circle, an enormous dome 30 yards in diameter is being built. Beneath this dome will he an ordinary theatre stage with all the usual equipment, while a hidden orchestra will divide the front of the stage from the aiena floor. Thus, one day the open ring may be occupied by the tumbling clowns and performing elephants of the cireus. The next day the arena floor may be sunk a few inches by hydraulic machinery, the fauteuils be extended right across to the orchestra, and Wagner opera may be played before 5000 people. As soon as Lohengrin and his swaa have disappeared, the fauteuils can be cleared away and tho arena floor sunk to its greatest depth, from which a magnificent. tier of terraced steps will rise to the highest point of the stage. Il ere the singers and musicians of the Ninth Symphony can bo provided with an ideal resting place, or Mark Antony, from the steps of the Capitol on tho stage itself can look down over all Rome to the outside limits of the arena floor. The magnificent possibilities of this mountainhke show place have induced ITcrr Bernhardt, the famous organiser of pageants to join forces with Tlerr Stosch Sorrasani, and Dresden in the future will witness some of the most colossal of spectacular productions. For instance, the thj ee-stoned "hmst"—Heaven, Earth and Hell-will IV prn.lueed here on a scale which has hitherto been impos-